How have you personally coped with the loss of family/close friends?

I was a sophomore in college. It was about 6am and my phone starts ringing. It's my sister.

"(my name)?" she asked, obviously upset.

"Yeah? Are you ok?"

"Tom...(she breaks down crying) Tom died!"

"Oh wow..." (I sat there and listened to her cry for the next few minutes.)

Tom was my neighbor. He was more of an uncle than a neighbor. His daughter grew up with me and my sister. She and my sister kind of bullied me, but they were the closest things to friends I had for a long time. They kind of stopped eventually and I've mostly forgiven them.

Anyway, I kept talking to my sister, asking if the rest of the family was doing ok. They were all obviously upset.

The funeral was in a few days. I told them I had a very important exam I couldn't get out of, so I would have to stay back. I was lying, and I think my family knew it.

In reality, I knew what I would see if I went to that funeral. I'd see a dead man, my good friend. That wouldn't bother me. I can handle death well. Hell, he'd laugh at me and call me a bitch if he saw me crying at his funeral. He was just one of those kinds of people, you know?

What bothered me was not how I would handle his death, but how others would...and knowing that family it was not going to be pretty, which it wasn't. They were all apparently in hysterics except his daughter. She had the same mindset as me. She kept it together because she knew there were difficult things to take care of now and she was going to have to take charge since her mother was breaking down.

Meanwhile I stayed at my apartment 2 hours away. I opened my laptop and watched some Youtube and Netflix. I felt like a shitty person for not going...and there's probably a good reason for that. I still look back and think about how I was such a selfish prick. I'm usually a very caring person who would do anything to help you out...but not that day.

/r/AskReddit Thread